This verb carries both literal and figurative senses of making straight or directing toward a goal. In its physical sense it describes steering a ship or guiding something along a straight path. The metaphorical extension speaks to moral and spiritual direction—making crooked paths straight, whether in preparing the way for the Lord or in the governance and guidance of life. John the Baptist quotes Isaiah's call to 'make his paths straight' (John 1:23), while James uses the imagery of steering ships to illustrate the power of the tongue (James 3:4). The multilingual evidence (Spanish 'enderezad' = straighten, German 'gerade machen' = make straight) emphasizes the corrective dimension—bringing what is crooked into alignment.